Delicious little balls of sesame seeds + coconut + date + jaggery — great as a dessert, at tea time, or just a nibble to power you through your day. Traditionally in Jaffna, these were often made with just sesame seeds and jaggery, perhaps with a little rice flour / water as a binder, but I find them much tastier with the addition of coconut and dates.
1 c. white sesame seeds
1 c. desiccated coconut
1/2 – 1 c. chopped dates
1 c. jaggery or dark brown sugar
1. Toast sesame seeds and coconut on medium-low heat, stirring, until the coconut turns light tan. Don’t toast for too long, or the sesame seeds will become bitter.
2. Let cool, then pound all the ingredients together or combine in food processor until you can form the mixture into balls that hold together. You may need to adjust the amount of dates (Medjool dates tend to be moister), and/or add a little water.
3. Shape into small balls, squeezing mixture together firmly. Enjoy!
NOTE: These may be stored refrigerated for a few weeks.
For most recipes, I’d recommend fresh coconut or rehydrating desiccated, and you certainly can, but these will actually keep longer if you skip the rehydrating phase.
Being a grown-up sometimes means you decide it’s ice cream sundae night for no particular reason. Kevin opted out, but the kids were thrilled. Base of strawberry ice cream (Breyer’s was not strawberry enough for Kavi and my taste, though — recs for more strawberry strawberry ice cream welcome):
• I went for banana, strawberry, raspberry, and dark Callebaut chocolate chips
• Kavi wanted just loads of fresh strawberries + Callebaut ruby chocolate chips (she says it’s really good)
• Anand had his with my suggested banana + milk toffee crumble combo, which is an inspired combination, if I do say so myself; we both agreed his would have been even better with a great vanilla bean ice cream; clearly I should always have great vanilla bean ice cream in the freezer.
Nordicware is so good. It lets me make four cakes from a single recipe, which is perfect in this case because I’m keeping one, then freezing and shipping three to Interstellar tier Patreon recipients.
But generally, I think this is a nice option for when I feel like making a cake, but don’t want an entire cake sitting around for a while — I can wrap and freeze three of them, to pull out when we feel like cake. Bake once a month, cake at every Sunday dinner?
(Remember to use something like Baker’s Joy to make prep easy!)
The delicate flavor of redbud syrup lends moist deliciousness to this classic pound cake. A little hint of ginger adds complexity, and a tangy lemon icing perfectly complements the slight floral tang of the redbud blossoms.
3 c. flour
2 t. ground ginger
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 c. unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 c. granulated sugar
4 large eggs, room temp
1/2 c. finely chopped crystallized ginger
2 t. finely grated lemon zest
1 t. vanilla extract
1 c. sour cream or Greek yogurt
1 c. redbud syrup
pink food coloring, if using
redbud blossoms for decorating
Lemon icing:
2 T lemon juice (about one lemon)
3/4 c. confectioner’s sugar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Grease and flour a 10-inch bundt pan (or as in this case, four smaller bundt pans). (Baker’s Joy spray makes this easy.)
3. In a large bowl, sift together flour, ground ginger, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Set aside.
4. Beat butter in a separate bowl until light and creamy (about two minutes). Gradually add sugar until the mixture is light in color and texture (about three minutes), scraping down sides of the bowl if needed. Beat in one egg at a time.
5. At low speed, add flour mixture a cup or so at a time, alternating with the sour cream (or Greek yogurt).
6. Remove half of batter to prepared pan. Add a little pink food coloring to remaining batter and stir to combine. Spoon remaining batter into pan and swirl with a skewer or chopstick.
7. Bake the cake until a toothpick comes out clean (50-55 minutes for a regular bundt pan; reduce time for smaller cakes).
8. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then invert onto rack, with a baking sheet beneath to catch drippings. (A sheet of parchment paper under the rack makes clean-up easy.)
9. Poke holes in cake and slowly drizzle redbud syrup over the warm cake(s). Let soak in before re-applying.
10. While cake is cooling, make lemon icing — combine lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar.
11. When cake is completely cool, drizzle lemon icing over the top (or alternately, dust with confectioner’s sugar), and decorate with fresh redbud blossoms.
Well, that was a little frustrating. I tried making two different versions of Sri Lankan sesame seed balls, hoping to include one in Vegan Serendib, and I’m afraid I didn’t like either one. They’re both Jaffna recipes, Ella Urundai (sesame fudge) and Sesame Seed Pori Ma, and both made with roasted sesame seeds, rice floor, and jaggery.
They came out looking fine (though I did need to add a little sesame oil to help them bind together). But I just don’t like the taste — it has an edge of bitterness, and the roasted rice flour is kind of grainy even after binding with the flour and jaggery.
It might’ve worked better if I’d done a jaggery syrup, and combined in that? I’m not sure. But I think I’m going to try a different approach if I do this again — there are Sinhalese recipes for sesame balls made with jaggery and coconut — no rice flour, and that sounds better. I’ve also seen variations adding in Medjool dates, which sounds yum. (I’m not positive I actually like sesame candy, though, which might be the real problem.)
Alas. Sometimes, experiments don’t work out. We still learn things. Science!
This didn’t quite work — I wanted to try making a forsythia and pandan cake. Made forsythia tea, subbed in a cup of it for a cup of water in the cake mix. (I also added an extra egg and subbed in melted butter for the oil in the cake mix.) But I don’t think I can really taste any difference; I’m not sure forsythia is strong enough to overcome a yellow box cake.
AND I added pandan powder to make some of the batter green; I got a two-color cake effect when I cut into the baked cake, but I honestly couldn’t taste the pandan either. (Pandan has sort of a grassy-coconut flavor.) Pandan extract next time, I think — pandan powder has failed me.
But it’s still pretty, so that’s something, and the kids thought it was delicious. They’re not so picky about cake, though.
It’s Jed’s birthday today, and he said he didn’t particularly need a cake, but I had to cook SOMETHING, so I made him birthday Danish aebleskiver. He had his with dark chocolate and raspberry jam. Happy birthday, sweetie!
The kids were very appreciative of the surprise pancake ball treat. They had theirs with butter and syrup, per usual.
Next time, Dutch poffertjes — I can use the same pan, right? And then I get to try making Sri Lankan kundu thosai, which is the real reason I bought this pan…
Anyone know whether the Danish or Dutch version came first?
Okay, this is not my neatest cake decorating ever, but I was trying to get into the spirit of Mardi Gras. It might have ended up sort of a cross between Mardi Gras and Holi, because I used colored edible dust for the purple and green instead of sprinkles? But a little exuberance for the coming of spring is a good thing.
Purple here represents justice, green represents faith, and gold represents power. Happy Mardi Gras!
